Shadow
by Cedarleaf
Summary: AU. For a hundred years, people have wondered about the lost Keyblade Master who disappeared during the final battle of the war. Now, a century later, another will rise in his place. [Roxas, AntiSora centric].
1. Chapter 1

**-Shadow-**

Chapter 1 – The Haunted Mansion

After a hard day's investigating, the gang returned to Twilight Station in considerably lower spirits than they had started out in.

"This bites," Hayner said moodily as they exited the station. "The 'seven wonders' turned out to be more like the seven misunderstandings. Let's just go home and work on the paper. What are we gonna write though?"

"The rumors were bogus. The End."

"If you think you're helping Pence, you're not."

"Boys, knock it off," Olette chided lightly. "And hey, we can still make it sound good if we write about all the work we did."

Roxas hung back, letting his friends walk ahead of him, mulling over the day's events in his mind. Balls popping out of solid walls, a never ending flurry of Vivis, his shadow coming out of the mirror, and that weird black and white train, not to mention that white thing that stole all the photos the other day. He also felt like he was being watched all week for some reason. There was definitely something strange going down in Twilight Town, but why he was the only one who seemed to notice?

He was brought out of his musings by Hayner calling him over to discuss their next plan of action. "Good of you to finally join us," he said when Roxas had caught up to them. "Now, as I was saying, the mansion's clear on the other side of town from here, right? So I say we just go home, and work on the paper tonight. Save the searching for tomorrow."

"The mansion?" Roxas asked.

"It's the last/seventh wonder," Olette and Pence said together.

"Well if that's the case, let's go there now and save all the writing for tomorrow," Roxas replied.

"I second that," Olette said. "We're already out, so we might as well just get all the research done today."

Pence nodded. "Besides, my dad said it's supposed to rain tomorrow." Pence's father was a meteorologist.

"Bummer," Hayner said, looking around at his friends. "So, it's three against one, huh? Alright, fine then, since I'm over ruled, let's go. Troops, move out!"

He led the way down the hill to Market Street. When they reached the Tram Common, Hayner turned to his best friend and smirked. "Wanna race?" he asked.

Roxas looked at Hayner. Hayner smiled at Roxas. For the briefest of moments, blue and hazel eyes stared each other down. Then as if a gun had been fired, the two boys took off for the far side of the plaza.

Olette scowled after their retreating backs. Pence just shrugged.

-oOo-

While he waited for the others to catch up and while he caught his breath, Roxas got a good look at this so-called "haunted" house. Truth be told, it didn't look that bad to him. It was run down to boot and definitely not a place he'd want to live in without some massive renovations first, but not particularly menacing. He noticed that the upstairs window on the left was white while the one on the right looked orange, though that may have been because of the setting sun.

The sound of twigs snapping behind him disrupted his study of the edifice.

The rest of the gang had arrived, though Hayner and Olette seemed to be acting a bit odd. Roxas turned to Pence for an explanation. "Hayner's sulking 'cause you beat him and Olette told him he deserved it for challenging you in the first place. So now they're not talking to each other."

Roxas nodded thoughtfully. That did rather sound like something those two would do. Deciding to let them stew on their own for a little bit, he asked, "So, what are we looking for?"

"Well, they say there's this weird shadow thing that haunts this place. Some people think it might be a leftover from Maleficient's army."

"What, one of those Heartless things?" If Hayner wasn't skeptical about the "seven wonders" before, he was now.

Olette, however, appeared thoughtful. "It might be," she said. "They did turn up every once in a while for decades after the war."

"Yeah, but the last time that happened was when my grandmother was our age. It's probably just some animal."

Even as he spoke, however, Roxas grew wary. They may have been defeated a century ago, but the Heartless were nothing to joke about. His great grandfather had been a SOLDIER for the King during the war and stories of his encounters with them had been passed down through the generations of his family, though he was certain Grandma Marlene had greatly embellished in certain parts of the family lore. Still, it probably _was_ just some animal….

Hayner caught the odd look in his friend's eye.

"Hey Roxas," he called.

"Hmm?"

"It's the full moon tonight."

Roxas looked at him, slightly wary of whatever his friend was talking about. So were Pence and Olette, as they had reason to be. Hayner going off on a tangent like this almost always meant he'd concocted yet another hare brained scheme of his, schemes which more often than not resulted in the rest of them being dragged along for the ride. "So?" he asked cautiously.

"So I dare you to spend the night in there tonight." Hayner jerked his head in the direction of the mansion.

Roxas stared at him. "Are you for real?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Okay, one: I don't feel like getting arrested for breaking and entering on the second to last day of summer. Two, I also don't feel like getting rabies. Three-"

"How do you know it isn't a Heartless?"

"Easy, if it was a Heartless, there would have been an outbreak by now and we'd have a lot more to worry about than rabies. Three, you're still sore that I beat you."

Hayner looked as though Roxas had just mortally offended him. "I so am not! You just know you'll chicken out! Think about it. All alone in a big, abandoned house in the middle of the woods on the full moon. It's enough to get to anybody, man, no shame in admitting you're scared."

"Yeah, yeah. I still say you're sore.

"I second that!"

"Pence, nobody asked you!"

Olette watched bemusedly as the boys continued to get themselves worked up. Pence, however, decided to break up the argument and have a little fun while he was at it.

"Compromise!" he said. Roxas and Hayner stared at him. "Come again?"

"Compromise," he repeated. "You both spend the night all alone in the creepy abandoned house in the middle of the woods on the full moon. It'll be fun!"

Pence fought down a grin. He loved it when he got to mess with his friends like this. Oblivious to how their friend had just set them up, Hayner and Roxas were sizing each other up sideways through the corners of their eyes, daring the other to back down. For reasons she wasn't quite sure off, Olette was getting a really bad feeling about this. Experience had taught her she couldn't really stop them once they switched into stupid boy mode, but she couldn't just leave them alone this time for some reason. "Tell you what, boys, we'll all go." Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

"We will?" Pence didn't like this sudden development.

"Yeah, c'mon Pence," Hayner goaded. "It'll be fun. We all go. Deal?" he said, turning to Roxas, extending a hand. The blond considered the offered appendix for a moment, then with mock seriousness, shakes it.

And sealed his fate.

-oOo-

Midnight found Roxas, Hayner, Pence, and Olette standing once again on the front lawn of the old mansion. Each was armed with a backpack, sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, food, a pocket knife, and in Pence's case, a camera (he never left home without one). They looked up at the ornate façade of their sleeping quarters for the next several hours.

"Are we really going to do this?" Olette asked. She was beginning to regret wanting to come along to keep an eye on the boys. The mansion looked much more menacing by moonlight than it was during the day. Every window had become a hollow eye staring down at her, the front archway was now a gaping jaw complete with fangs ready to swallow her whole. The broken columns looked eerily like tombstones.

"Oh hell yes," Hayner was grinning from ear to ear. Even Pence seemed a little excited, though he may have still been high from successfully sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. Roxas said nothing. He had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't quite place. It wasn't fear or apprehension, not quite. It was more like… like he knew something was coming, but he had no idea what. Whatever it was, it sent a slight shiver down his spine.

"Scared?" Hayner goaded his friend.

"No," Roxas told him, "just cold. Let's go."

He led the way, making his way carefully through the broken columns. He was worried they'd have to walk around to the back to find a way in but luckily the front door was open, though both he and Hayner had had to throw their weight into it to get the heavily rusted lock to open.

It was pitch dark inside. "Flashlights on," Roxas whispered.

Four beams of light dimly illuminated the front hall. They swept over the banisters and stairs, casting eerie shadows on the decrepit walls. Roxas trained his flashlight on the chandelier overhead. It was covered in what Roxas guessed to be at _least_ half a century's worth of cobwebs and dust. It occurred to him that this was probably the first time the house had been subjected to artificial lighting in a couple of decades.

He glanced over to the others who were also taking everything in. "So, how do we want to split up the search parties?"

"We're splitting up?" Olette asked.

"Yeah," Roxas told her. "We need to find a good place to sleep, but this house is huge. Finding a suitable spot would take forever if we just stayed in one big group."

"I guess that makes sense," Olette said, though she still sounded unsure.

"So it's settled, then." Hayner pulled two walkie-talkies out of his backpack. "I knew these would come in handy."

"You still have those things?" Roxas asked, incredulous. He hadn't seen them since the days when he and Hayner used to coordinate various pranking and missions of general disorderly conduct around town that often resulted in much mayhem and amusement, even if the two of them were the only ones laughing.

"Yep," Hayner chirped. Clearly he remembered those days with as much fondness as Roxas did. It was when he'd gained his reputation as a troublemaker, after all. "I thought they'd be better than just using our cell phones. One, I don't think we'd get good reception in here and two, my dad's gonna be curious as to why I have roaming charges on my bill for a 1 AM call. Since you and me are the only ones who can use these, we're gonna have to split up. You and Pence take down here while Olette and me search upstairs." He handed one of the devices to the other boy.

"If you wanted a little alone time with Olette, you could have just said so," He said shrewdly, though quietly enough so that said girl, who was looking at a display in the center of the room, couldn't hear them. Pence was busy examining a suit of armor.

Hayner pretended to be preoccupied with closing his backpack. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Uh huh, sure," Roxas responded with a knowing smile. He decided to let the matter drop, however. "Seriously, though, can Pence and I take upstairs?"

"If you want. Why?"

"Just curious."

Hayner gave his friend an odd look but shrugged it off. "Go for it. Just radio me if you find anything interesting."

"Got it."

Walking over to where Pence was now snapping a picture of the helmet, Roxas tapped him on the shoulder, motioning the other boy to follow him. When the blond started up the stairs, Pence frowned. "I thought Hayner and Olette had the second floor."

"Not anymore, we switched."

Shrugging, the brunette followed him. "Any reason why?"

"I noticed something about this place earlier. I wanted to check it out," Roxas told him over his shoulder. Then he nearly tripped on the landing and had to look forward again. Pence snickered. Roxas elbowed him.

-oOo-

They reached the second floor without further mishap.

"So, where to next?"

Roxas shined his flashlight around. To his right, were a set of double doors. "Let's try here."

Beyond was a library. Shelves of books lined three walls, the fourth being a large window covered by the orange curtain Roxas had seen earlier from outside. Three chairs clustered around a handsome oak table on the tiled, sunken portion of the floor. Pence wandered over to the window and drew back the curtain. It released a small shower of dust, but at least it let in the moonlight to illuminate the room better. '_There has to be at least a thousand books in here!'_ he thought, taking it all in now that he could see properly. Curious, he glanced at some of the titles. Pence even took one off the shelf and began flipping through it.

It was on the middle shelf, directly across from the window that he noticed a rather unusual ornament among the books.

It was a unicorn.

Made of white marble and about two feet tall, the statue stared sharply downward, its narrowed eyes harshly scrutinizing the floor.

Roxas didn't like it. For such a reputedly benign creature, this one seemed rather ominous. As a guy, he'd never admit it, but it kind of freaked him out.

"Hey, Pence," he called. The other boy looked up from his book, _An Island in the Moon_ by William Blake. "Let's keep looking. There's gotta be better places than this." No way in hell was he sleeping under the gaze of that creepy statue if he could help it. Fortunately, Pence just shrugged, put the book back where he found it, and followed his blond friend out of the room.

-oOo-

The rest of the rooms in that hallway were uninteresting. They were way too dusty, blocked by debris, or in one case even, a 19th century bathroom. Not one looked to be suitable for sleeping in. Finally, they arrived at the end of the row on the exact opposite side of the mezzanine from where they'd started. "Alright," Roxas said, putting his hand on the doorknob, "last room. If this doesn't work out, we'll call Hayner and Olette, see what they've found."

"And if they haven't found anything?" Pence asked, fighting back a yawn. By now it was two-thirty in the morning.

"Then we sleep in the front hall."

The poor boy looked ready to keel over right then and there, but he allowed Roxas to lead him into the next room anyway.

They stepped into utter white. All white walls and white furniture and white linens on the white bed and white drapes and a white table and chairs on the white tiled floor. If it weren't for the lingering summer heat, Roxas would have thought he'd walked into a snowball. The now thread bare curtain did very little to keep out the moonlight, making the room seem to glow. Roxas didn't know why, but he felt oddly comfortable here.

'_Definitely a girl's room_,' he thought. For looking to have been from around the turn of the century, the place was in pretty good condition. It wasn't too dusty there, either. The tiniest of cracks in one of the windows had let in a breeze, preventing the dust from settling too much. Pence actually had the gusto to try the bed. "Not bad," he said kicking back.

He was snoring twenty seconds later. Roxas had to fight down a laugh. Dumping his backpack on the table, he got out the walkie-talkie. "Hey, Hayner! Can you hear me, dude?"

The voice that responded to him was a little hard to make out. These things were scratchier than he remembered. "_Yeah, dude?_"

"Pence and I found a good spot to hunker down for the night."

"_Good. Olette 'n' me were about to give up. Where are you?"_

"In the room furthest to the left upstairs. It's a big, white bedroom. Pence's already passed out."

Hayner snorted._ "Nice. Seeya in a minute."_

Turning the walkie-talkie off, Roxas put it back in his backpack. He then unrolled his sleeping bag and was preparing to go to sleep when a picture on the wall caught his eye. Three children, two boys and a girl, smiled down on him from behind the glass. The girl and one of the boys had dark hair while the other boy had really light hair, almost white, though it was hard to tell from the black and white photograph. Looking around, Roxas saw the three again in almost all the other pictures, always the same three children, the two boys and the girl. Their ages in the photographs varied, though, from around four or so in the first to about maybe the early teens. As he studied them, Roxas had the most bizarre feeling that he'd seen them somewhere before. But what was the likelihood of that? Maybe if he got a better look at their faces…

He reached out to wipe the dust off the oldest picture of them-

And jumped as twin screams sounded from downstairs. Over on the bed, Pence bolted upright.

"HAYNER! OLETTE!"


	2. Chapter 2

**-Shadow-**

Chapter 2 - Retreat

"Hayner! Olette!" Roxas threw open the door so fast he almost tore it from its hinges. Pence had already moved past him, shining his flashlight around the foyer, searching for their missing friends. "Where are you guys?" he shouted.

Olette's frightened voice came somewhere off to the lower left. "Watch out! It's headed your way!"

"What is?" Roxas asked, but he had already seen the answer.

"It" was a pair of glowing yellow eyes connected to a solid black body, a body that _stayed_ black even as Pence shone his flashlight on it. But it hissed, scrambling out of the light before Roxas could get a closer look at it. It ran across the floor on all fours until it disappeared down a hallway across the room. Then the thing was gone, and all was quiet again.

Roxas blinked, his mind still struggling to process what he'd just witnessed. It _had_ been a Heartless! They were lucky they weren't dead already. They had to get out of here! Now! Grabbing Pence by the collar, he dragged him back into the white room to get their stuff and hightail it the hell out of there.

Almost ripping his backpack open to get his walkie-talkie, Roxas radioed the others. "Hayner! Olette! Where are you?"

For one moment, there was bone chilling silence, then-

"_We're somewhere downstairs, I don't know where_!"

Olette sounded close to tears, and Roxas couldn't blame her.

Roxas swallowed hard, quelling the urge to panic. "Just stay where you are! Pence and I are coming to get you!"

"_Roxas, hurry! Hayner's hurt! We've got to get him out of here!_"

"Just stay calm!" he said frantically, more to calm himself than Olette. "We're coming, just hang on!"

He bolted from the room and down the stairs, Pence right behind him. Keeping an eye on the passage where the thing disappeared, they made their way into the hallway it had come out of, him in the lead with Pence watching their rear. It was just as dark and spooky as the rest of the house, but Roxas had other things to worry about. He was sure he'd heard Olette's yell come somewhere around down here.

After several tense minutes of fruitless searching, he was just about to radio again when he saw a flash of light up ahead. It was them! Calling out, Roxas sprinted around the next corner to find this two friends kneeling off to the side. Olette's face was pure white and Hayner's left side was covered in blood. Roxas swore. This was seriously not good. "Can you stand?" he asked Hayner.

"Yeah," the blond said gruffly, and Roxas could tell he was fighting off shock. He turned to the three of them. "Pence, give your flashlight to Olette and help carry Hayner. Hayner, you pass out from blood loss before we're good and out of here and I'll punch you. Olette, you lead the way back to the front door. I'll take the rear."

The others obeyed him without question. Hayner may have been the leader most of the time, but when the shit really hit the fan, Roxas was in charge, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Mercifully, their progress through the mansion was quick. Pence was helping Olette to navigate their way back to the foyer and Hayner wasn't as out of it as Roxas expected, though he was putting most of his weight on Pence.

Roxas didn't blink or breathe until they'd exited the house and shut the front door firmly behind them. When they were out of the courtyard, Pence turned to Roxas. "What now?"

He was sweating heavily, from both fear and the effort of supporting Hayner, who was a lot taller than he was. Roxas bit his lip.

"My house. It's closest."

-oOo-

Five past three in the morning found the four of them sitting in Roxas' kitchen with all the lights on.

Roxas fought back a wince as Olette applied peroxide to the slashes on Hayner's freshly cleaned arm. The first thing she'd done upon their arrival at his place was to demand first aid supplies. The second was that Hayner sit down, shut up, and let her see his wound.

Nobody argued, and nobody had spoken since.

Eventually though, Pence broke the silence. "So, what happened?" he asked, eyeing the still glistening lacerations on Hayner's arm, grimacing.

Hayner and Olette glanced at each other, their eyes debating who would speak. Olette bit her lip. "Well, I'm not really sure," she said at length. "I mean, we were just trying to find our way back to the front hall when we turned down this hallway and this huge black thing just attacked us. Hayner pushed me out of the way, but…."

It was clear she was still very much upset.

"We saw it, too," Roxas told her, motioning to Pence and himself.

"So the seventh wonder really was a Heartless…" Pence mused.

"You really think so?" Olette asked.

"What else is completely black with glowing yellow eyes?"

"True…."

Olette finished wrapping bandages around Hayner's wounds. The blond grimaced a little as the gauze pressed against still tender flesh. "'S got nasty claws, whatever it is," he muttered.

"I'm not so sure, guys. It might not be what we think it is."

The other three turned to Roxas, who had spoken.

"What, you mean, not a Heartless? It has to be!" Pence said loudly.

"Shh! Pence, not so loud!"

Roxas shook his head. "My parents are out of town for some wedding this week, don't worry about it. And anyway, it just doesn't add up."

And it didn't. Roxas had been thinking about it since they'd gotten back to his house, and there were just too many differences between what he knew of the Heartless and what he'd seen tonight. Great, blaring discrepancies that the logic side of him simply could not ignore, despite what he'd initially thought. Yeah, it had the glowing eyes and the dark body and yeah, it looked a helluva lot like a Heartless but it certainly didn't act like one. Heartless are ruled by their lust for stealing living hearts and procreating by doing so. They were like robots; they did what they were programmed to and nothing else. And once Heartless smelled prey, nothing deterred them and only their own destruction could stop them. Yet the thing in the mansion not only didn't attack them for over _two hours_, it fled after running into Hayner and Olette. Secondly, if a person was lucky enough to survive an encounter with one, any flesh wounds caused by the Heartless' claws or teeth were black, which Hayner's weren't. Thirdly, the thing was one of the "seven wonders" which meant not only had other people seen it, but also that it had been around for a while, but there hadn't been an outbreak.

Roxas also couldn't shake the feeling from somewhere deep down in his gut that the thing was not what it appeared to be.

When he'd finished sharing his thoughts, his friends looked at each other. On one hand, in their minds, the thing couldn't be anything but a Heartless. On the other hand, Roxas' hunches had the uncanny habit of being right on the mark 95 of the time, and the remaining 5 of the time, they weren't far off.

Hayner fought back a sigh of sheer exasperation. "So, basically what you're saying is that we have no idea what it is."

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Peachy."

"So, what are we going to do about it?"

"What _can_ we do about it?"

"Well, we have to do _something_. That thing's way dangerous!"

"Couldn't we just leave it alone? If Roxas is right and it has been there for a while, it hasn't bothered anybody, so why not just let it be?"

"_Leave it alone!? _Olette, that thing almost clawed my arm off!"

"We _did_ trespass on its' 'territory'."

"Oh, so now this is all my fault?"

"Yes, it is! You knew we weren't supposed to be there."

"Hey, you came too!"

"To keep an eye on you guys! You can be such boneheads when you get all competitive like that and I for one didn't want to see you get hurt! _And_ you were the one who dared Roxas to spend the night in there in the first place, so yeah, it is your fault!"

Roxas glanced at the clock. It was three thirty and _waaay_ to early/late to put up with others' arguing (well, Hayner and Olette, really. Pence had wisely withdrawn from the conversation). He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Loudly.

"Ow!" Olette clapped her hands over her ears.

"Don't do that!"

"Then don't deserve it. Listen, we're all really tired and cranky so everybody just shut up and get to bed. We still have that paper to write today-"

"Today?"

Roxas pointed at the clock. "Today. And we'd better get it done 'cause there's no way in hell I'm doing homework on the last day of summer and the festival, so get. Now."

He must have looked a lot more menacing than he meant to because the others got up and went their separate ways without another word. Olette retreated to Roxas' sister's room (she was away at college, so it was empty for now), Roxas took his parents' bed for the night because Hayner had taken his and he didn't feel like sleeping on the couch downstairs. Pence had camped out down there anyway after snagging an extra pillow from somewhere. And then there was quiet.

Exhausted as he was, it wasn't long before Roxas succumbed to his body's demands for sleep. Just as he gave in completely, one last image floated across his mind's eye – the face of the dark haired boy from the pictures in the mansion, his smile wide and bright, without a care in the world.


	3. Chapter 3

**-****Shadow****-**

Chapter 3 – Lost and Found

His dreams that night were turbulent and fleeting. Faces of people he had never met before appeared before him. A tall man with vivid amber eyes and a cold smile, holding the reins of a dragon wreathed in green flame. There were two girls also, with blonde and ruby hair, the warm light seeming to wrap itself around them like a cloak, their hands outstretched as if to welcome him. A young man, though still very much a boy, with locks of moonlight and sea colored eyes too old for one so young, battling against enemies unseen in hissing shadows. And within those shadows, there was another boy, his shining blue eyes bright and proud even through the overwhelming darkness.

But most of all, he dreamed of light and darkness, of choice and destiny.

Then Roxas awoke, and remembered nothing.

-oOo-

Not one of them was up before noon. Olette woke first, far too used to getting up early to sleep in any later. Stretching, it took her a moment to remember what she was doing in Roxas' sister's room. Then the memories of sneaking into the mansion and subsequent encounter with the not-Heartless came back to her. Lying there on the bed, bright sunlight and city noises coming in through the window, it was hard to believe last night's events weren't just some bizarre nightmare she'd had, but Olette knew better than to doubt her own memory. Every last bit of it had been frighteningly real. Her gut told her it was just the tip of the iceberg.

And speaking of her gut, it was growling at her. Time for some breakfast.

Pence woke to the sound of someone coming down the stairs. Groaning, he burrowed deeper into the couch, perfectly content to ignore whoever it was in favor of going back to sleep and would have done just that had the tantalizing smells and sounds of food being prepared not lured him into the kitchen where Olette already had bacon and eggs going on the stove. She placed the first of them on a plate and set it on the table in front of Pence, who smiled his thanks before chowing down. Roxas and Hayner came stumbling in a few minutes later.

They ate in relative silence, each having too much on his/her mind to make conversation. Just as Pence was carrying his now empty plate to the sink, the phone rang, disrupting the tentative tranquility. Roxas answered it.

"Hello?"

"_Hi, Roxas, it's Mrs. Cowden. Is Hayner there?_"

"It's your mom," Roxas said, lobbing the portable phone to his friend. Had he been any other teenager, Hayner's ass would've been grounded into the next millennium for sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. But being Hayner, his parents had long since bowed to the inevitable and usually let him off the hook so long as he checked in with them by noon the next day. Having been asleep, he hadn't yet, so they'd come calling, correctly guessing that he'd be over at one of his three best friends' houses.

"Hey, Ma," Hayner said. "…Yeah….Really? I didn't hear it go off, the battery's probably dead or something… Nah, we're gonna work on the project, so I'm going to be home late tonight… Yeah… 'Kay, love you too, Ma. Bye."

"You guys gonna call your folks, too?" Roxas asked when Hayner got off the phone.

"I left them a note last night," Olette said, digging the prongs of her fork into the back of Hayner's hand when he tried to steal the last of her bacon.

"Same," Pence replied.

Roxas nodded. "So…" he said when no one made a move to fill the awkward silence, "you guys want to start of the project?"

Hayner sighed. "Let's just get this over with."

-oOo-

They'd just finished the first draft of the paper when they decided to take a break for a while. Leaving Hayner, Pence, and Olette chilling on the couch downstairs, Roxas grabbed a change of fresh clothes from his own room and headed into the bathroom for a shower. After taking off his shirt however, he discovered something on his chest. There, written right over his heart was...

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(4/12/08 – I had had this with all dashes for spacing before, but then this site changed their stupid formatting rules so I had to do it over. But as before, just ignore the 8's and the O's._)_

Well, damn... "Hey guys! Come here!" he called.

"What is it?" Olette asked, coming upstairs with Pence and Hayner in tow. Then they saw the writing.

"It happened again?" Hayner asked, tilting his head to the side a little as he observed the image.

"Mm hmm," Roxas replied.

"I'll go get my camera," Pence said, disappearing down the stairs.

See, Roxas had a strange... habit, if you will, of writing things in his sleep. On his homework, on his bedroom walls, on the dry-erase board of the fridge downstairs, and a multitude of other strange places, writing would appear where there wasn't any before he went to sleep, though his favorite canvas seemed to be his own body. He would wake up and it would just be there. And it could only be Roxas who was the writer; when it first began, Roxas thought it was Hayner or his sister or somebody trying to pull a prank on him. But as years passed and the writing continued to appear, Roxas and his family began to realize it wasn't just some prank. The writing was in Roxas' own hand and he would even wake up still clutching the pen sometimes. Concrete proof came when Roxas was in fourth grade. He woke up Christmas morning to find new writing on his arm, written in a code he and Hayner had created the summer before. But Hayner had since forgotten the code, meaning Roxas was the only person who could have possibly written the message on his arm.

Armed with this proof, his mother had taken him to see a psychiatrist who specialized in sleeping disorders. The doctor diagnosed it as an extremely rare form of sleepwalking, the manifestation of a highly developed and intelligent but suppressed subconscious mind. But even with the diagnosis, it was discovered that very little could be done to treat Roxas' condition. Medication, sleep therapy, nothing worked. One time, Roxas even tried locking all of his writing utensils in his desk drawer.

He'd woken up the next morning with a pen in one hand, his desk key in the other, and lines from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner on his ceiling.

In the end, it was decided that, as writing in his sleep didn't do any physical nor psychological harm to Roxas (other than weirding him out every so often), the behavior was left alone to run its course, abet monitored. So now Roxas kept a record of all occurrences of his sleep writing in a journal, complete with descriptions of the writing, location, events that had happened in the days preceding, and pictures, the last of those being courtesy of Pence and his Polaroid camera. Some of the writings were original, some was absolute gibberish, but sometimes he quoted others as well, William Blake, Shakespeare, and Neil Gaiman being among his favorites. He'd more or less gotten used to it over the years, but it was still kinda freaky sometimes how he'd somehow managed to write perfectly legibly in places he couldn't even see (his mother, for one, had always been bemused by the fact that he wrote more neatly on his back in his sleep than he did on his homework while fully conscious). The only discernable pattern to his sleep writing was that it happened more frequently when he was stressed out.

However, lately it seemed to be tapering off. The last occurrence was almost two months ago, and Roxas was beginning to hope that maybe it had finally stopped. But alas...

Back in the bathroom, Olette had finally figured out the latest of Roxas' unconscious midnight masterpieces.

"Alright, I think I've got it!" she said. "_A scattered dream that's like a far-off memory. A far-off memory that's like a scattered dream. I want to line the pieces up, yours and mine._"

"Nice poem," Hayner said," now if you could only pump out sap like that on demand for English class, you'd get an A every time."

"Not funny, Hayner," Olette chided. "As if he needs you to make him feel any stranger about it than he already does. We still don't know why this happens or even what caused them to begin with. You said it just started happening when you were five, right Roxas?"

"The morning of my birthday," the blond confirmed.

"But look at the shape of it, though," Pence said.

"What about it?" asked Hayner.

"It's a crown."

"So what? A lot of these things have been in weird shapes before."

Pence shook his head. "Remember that armor I was looking at last night? It was sentry armor from around the turn of the last century, royal armor. I'd be willing to bet that this has something to do with that mansion."

Hayner made a noise of disagreement, but Roxas was thoughtful. The others didn't know it, but there were a few times before when his writing had been... well, not prophetic, because it had been about things that had already happened, but there were details that Roxas himself couldn't have possibly known, details that were later proven to be accurate. This latest writing didn't sound like a prophecy, but it had a strange sort of resonance in his mind that he couldn't quite place...

"Whatever, my brain's fried for today," Hayner was saying. Switching topics, he added, "I was gonna order some pizza for dinner. What do you guys want on it?"

"Sausage, pepperoni, extra mozzarella, olives-"

"Only one extra topping apiece, Pence."

"_Fiiine_, sausage."

"Olette?"

"Just mushrooms, please," the girl replied. "And for you, Roxas?"

No answer. The boy addressed was still deep in his own thoughts. Hayner bopped his best friend on the noggin.

"Hey, what was that for?" Roxas cried, rubbing the now sore spot on his head.

"Pizza."

Finding the other blond's one-worded explanations as unhelpful as usual, Roxas turned to Olette.

"What kind of topping would you like?" she reiterated.

"Oh, uh, green peppers."

Hayner snorted. "Always with the peppers," he snickered, reaching into his vest for his cell phone to call the gang's favorite pizza place.

...Only to realize he wasn't wearing his vest anymore. And when he remembered _why_ he wasn't wearing it, he paled. "Aww, _shit!!_"

Hayner bolted from the room and ran down the stairs, leaving Roxas, Pence, and Olette standing there to stare after him. They heard him cursing down in the laundry room a moment later.

"Hayner, what is it?" Roxas called. He'd seen the other blond fly off the handle before, but even for him, this was pushing it.

"That damn Heartless took my phone!!" Hayner shouted back.

"_What?_"

The three of them raced downstairs. They found Hayner in the laundry room, holding his vest above the sink where Roxas had put it the night before while Olette tended to the other blond's wounds. Or rather, what remained of his vest. The left side was in bloody tatters.

Hayner always kept his phone in his left pocket.

"It's not in there!" he exclaimed. "It must've fallen out when that thing attacked me!"

He had reason to be upset. Hayner had gotten one of those new iPhones for his birthday last week from his dad.

"Oh, damn," Roxas said. Not only had Hayner lost his coveted vest (it was beyond ruined), but Roxas also knew how much his best friend loved that phone. Not to mention Mr. Cowden would rip his son a new one if he ever found out that Hayner had lost the six hundred dollar device.

Hayner cursed again, dumping the vest back into the sink before grabbing one of Roxas' spare jackets hanging on the hooks by the door.

"Where are you going?" Pence asked.

"To get my phone back, where else?" the sandy blond said, shrugging on the jacket.

Olette stared at him. "Are you insane!?"

For all the times she'd said it, this was the first time she seriously considered it might be true.

"He doesn't have a choice, Olette," Roxas said, placing his hand on the girl's shoulder. "If Mr. Cowden finds out that Hayner lost that phone, he's gonna string him up by his own intestines."

Hayner gulped at the reminder. Olette shook her head. "You're not going back in there for some dumb phone!"

"You heard Roxas, I have to!" Hayner argued back. "Besides, it's my phone! Who else is going to go get it?"

"I will!" Roxas and Olette said at the exact same time. Surprised, they looked at each other.

So did Hayner. "You will?"

"Yes." Roxas' tone was firm and Olette nodded just as resolutely, though she was biting her lip, belying her nervousness.

Pence sighed. "I gotta tell you, guys. I really don't think it's worth it. Heartless or not, that thing's dangerous and going back in that mansion for something expendable like a phone is just plain stupid."

"Maybe," Roxas admitted, "but if we don't, then Hayner will have to explain how he lost his phone to his dad and why he can't get it back, and even if Mr. Cowden _did_ believe us, I think him knowing about that thing is just not what we want right now."

Pence frowned but remained silent, conceding the point.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Roxas said, "So, it's settled then. Olette and I will go back into the mansion and get Hayner's phone while he and Pence stay outside as lookouts."

From the looks on their faces, Roxas could tell that none of them were very happy with his proposition, but for the moment, it was the best they could do.

-oOo-

It wasn't hard to find their way back through the mansion. The trail of blood and disturbed dust was all too easy to follow. The blood wasn't much, just a trickle of droplets, but it was enough to make Roxas' stomach churn, knowing they belonged to his best friend. Olette seemed to share his sentiments, clinging to his arm as they made their way through the hallways. It helped that it was still light out, but only a little.

The path ended in a small hallway, its walls splashed with crimson. There was a sole door in the hallway, a linen closet of sorts. They found the cell phone lying on the floor beside it, miraculously unscathed.

"Hayner, you ass," Roxas muttered as he bent down to pick up the phone. "Of course it attacked you, you backed it right into a dead end!"

Olette allowed herself a breath of relief. "Alright, we got it, can we go now?"

"Sure," Roxas said. Olette seemed to want to get away from the puddle of Hayner's blood as fast as possible, and he quite agreed.

They made it back to the foyer quickly. Olette began speed walking for the front door, but Roxas slowed as they passed the staircase that lead up to the white room. The dark haired boy's face came back to him.

He headed up the stairs.

"Roxas?" Olette called when she noticed he was no longer by his side.

"Hang on a sec," the blond said over his shoulder.

"_Roxas, where are you going!?_"Olette cried, alarmed her friend was heading deeper into the mansion. She shouted at him to come back, but he was already at the second level. Roxas knew it was foolish to stay in such a dangerous place for any longer than was absolutely necessary, but he couldn't help it. There was something about that boy that just wouldn't leave him alone...

The white room looked different in the daylight, but the strange sense of peace and calm remained the same, Roxas noted distantly when he entered, almost like a sanctuary. Shaking off his musing, Roxas headed straight for the nearest portrait of the trio.

The door opened behind him, and Olette burst in. "Roxas, what has gotten into y-"

She cut off in a terrified squeak.

Roxas turned around. And stared.

Glowing yellow eyes on a solid black face stared right back.

-oOo-

A.N. Dun dun _duuun_... a cliffie! Yes, I can be truly evil sometimes, can't I? Heh, you don't want to know how long it took me to make that crown. I had to redo it so many, many times to get it to look right, sheesh. Oh, and before you ask, yes, writing in your sleep is a real phenomenon. I have a friend who does it sometimes. While I consider her to be one of the smartest people I know (like almost genius smart), I know there was some event in her past that triggered it. I don't know what that event was, but I think writing in her sleep is just how her subconscious deals with it. As for the reason why _Roxas_ writes in his sleep, well... you'll just have to stay tuned and find out. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**-Shadow-**

Chapter 4 – Fear and New Faces

Being the only one in their gang mercifully lacking a Y chromosome, Olette had had her fair share of trials and scares and had long since gotten used to the unusual, unexpected, and just downright strange situations the boys always dragged her into. Though she loved them all dearly, Hayner with his daredevil attitude and hare brained schemes, Pence with his friendly but mischievous personality, and Roxas with his quiet cunning could be quite a handful. Hell, any one of them on his own was quite a handful, but all three together was often an exasperating and frustrating combination. Still, they were her best friends, her precious boys, and she wouldn't have had it or them any other way. This friendship of theirs might not have much weight in the grand scheme of things, but to her and to them, it meant the world itself.

But lately though, something had been changing. It wasn't that tomorrow was the last day of summer, either. Even if she didn't particularly like school itself, Olette did enjoy learning and with Hayner, Pence, and Roxas there, it wasn't so bad. Nor was it that they were getting older- children slowly growing into young adults. No, Olette couldn't quite put her finger on _what_, but she knew it had something to do with Roxas.

Sweet Roxas, kind and wonderful in a way that no one else was. Olette could have fallen for him so easily if she hadn't already had feelings for Hayner. That aside, she had always sensed that Roxas was different somehow, special, like he was meant for other things, _greater _things. He got those feelings and insights, and while they were almost always dead on, his trust in them was still shaky at times and had scared him more than once. He had no control over them and Olette knew it frightened Roxas where they might lead him someday, even if he never let on as much. But that was okay. He was still one of her best friends regardless, and she was happy to simply have known him and to have been his friend. And as long as they were, things would turn out alright in the end. Sleep writing or no, Roxas had a good head on his shoulders and Olette trusted him. He wasn't reckless like Hayner was. He knew the difference between real and imagined danger. The latter he disregarded with ease, but the former was something he avoided at all costs and only confronted when faced with no other option.

So for Roxas to leave her and head deeper into that- that _thing_'s territory, deeper into what he knew was a potentially deadly situation, for no logical reason was so out of character, for one frightening moment, Olette feared he'd lost his mind. Danger or no, there was no way in hell she was going to let him go alone.

She chased after him up the stairs and into the room he'd disappeared into down the hall, demanding, "Roxas! What's gotten into y-"

But then she spotted a large black shape in the far corner of the room, curled up on the bed and the words were strangled by fear from her throat even before she finished saying them.

Roxas whipped around, at the sound of her voice or to see what had scared her, Olette didn't know, but the moment he did, a low rumbling sound came from the not-Heartless. It was growling at them.

Alarmed, she froze where she stood, and out of the corner of her eye, saw Roxas do the same. Seeing it last night in the hallway, the thing hadn't seemed cloaked in the darkness so much as one with it. Now, in the daylight, it stood out in stark contrast to the almost glaring white of the room, hunched over in obvious threat. Wicked looking claws clutched the side of the bed in a way that would surely rip the soft fabric to shreds as easily as it ripped Hayner's flesh and its glowing yellow eyes were wide and unnaturally round. Olette thought she could even make out black fangs bared at them.

So morbidly transfixed in her observation of the thing, she almost missed Roxas' low whisper, "Olette, walk towards me. _Slowly…_"

The girl turned her head to stare at him, convinced her friend really had gone mad. She was much closer to the door than he was, he should come to her!

"It'll be alright," he coached her, still locking eyes with the not-Heartless, "Just don't make any sudden movements."

Olette looked between the blond and the thing on the bed, torn between her fear and her friend. _Very_ slowly and trying hard not to tremble, she crossed the room to his side, looking to Roxas for reassurance as she did so, but he still had his eyes on the not-Heartless. She cast a fearful glance at it herself and with a jolt, Olette realized it had been staring back at Roxas the entire time, not her. It considered _him_ the threat, even though it had probably been her bursting through the door that had woken it up. Even through her fear, some part of her distantly acknowledged that Roxas had been right about the thing really not being a Heartless. They would have been dead long ago if it had, and that same wayward part of her brain had to marvel that he'd hit the nail on the head yet again.

Not that that was any consolation, really. Heartless or not, Olette still remembered the horrible wounds it had raked into Hayner. Roxas seemed to have the same thought and pulled the girl behind him once she was close enough, shielding her from the monster's gaze.

"Are you alright?" the blond asked in the same quiet voice. Olette nodded into his back. Outwardly, Roxas was the epitome of cautious calm, but she could feel his pulse racing furiously.

"What are you doing?" she whispered fearfully in his ear. "We have to get out of here!"

"Wait," he whispered back. "I need you to do something for me."

"What?" What could possibly be more important that getting out of here with their lives?

His answer was as unexpected as his request. "Look at that photo on the wall and tell me if you recognize anybody in it."

"_What?_" she said in disbelief, her incredulousness overriding her fright for a moment. They were ten feet away from death, literally staring it in the face, and he was worried about some picture!? Over on the bed, the monster shifted at the sound of her exclamation and growled louder in warning. Olette whimpered and ducked behind Roxas again, hating herself in her cowardice for allowing him to face such danger alone.

"Olette, please? Just trust me, I need to know," he pleaded, not reacting to either her or the not-Heartless. "Do any of them look familiar to you at all?"

Unable to do anything else, Olette cast a furtive glance at the beast over his shoulder for a moment. It had moved to the edge of the bed, its too-round eyes narrowed into yellow slits and its dagger-like teeth clenched tight in that awful snarl. Forcing back her fear, she looked away from the thing and carefully studied the portrait beside her. In it, a young girl, maybe seven or so, sat in a small but ornate chair while two boys stood on either side of her. She and one of the boys had darkish hair, while the other boy had light hair and appeared to be older than the other two. Olette recognized their clothing as being from around the turn of the last century, but nothing else about them was familiar.

"No," she told Roxas, "not at all."

She heard him sigh in disappointed resignation. "Let's get out of here, then," Roxas said, turning to look at her and taking his eyes off the not-Heartless for the first time.

But no sooner than he'd spoken than the thing hissed suddenly, leaping from the bed onto the table in the middle of the room and snarled at the teens, the old wood creaking ominously under the sudden weight.

Olette shrieked and they both jumped back. The monster crouched low, as if to pounce, but Roxas snatched Olette by the hand and wrenched her back toward the door and out of the room.

-oOo-

They fled across the mezzanine and down the stairs as fast as their legs could carry them. His heart was pounding, his lungs screamed for air, and Olette's death grip on this hand was causing him to lose feeling in his fingers, but Roxas didn't care, concentrating only on getting himself and his friend out of the mansion and away from danger.

Reaching the front door, he wrenched it open, practically shoving Olette out into the courtyard ahead of him before he slammed it shut behind them.

Hayner and Pence were waiting for them on the front steps. They leapt to their feet from where they sat the moment the other two burst through the door.

"What happened?" Hayner demanded, immediately checking on Olette when he saw the girl's terrified state.

"Did you see it?" Pence asked, looking to Roxas.

The blond nodded, breathing too heavily to speak. He pressed his ear against the wood, listening hard for any sound of the not-Heartless following them. He hadn't heard anything inside, but still.

That had been way, way too close.

"Back to town," Hayner ordered, putting an arm around Olette to steady her. "Now."

They made their way back to the woods quickly. They didn't talk. Hayner was too worried/angry, Pence was too concerned, and Olette…

Even after they'd lost sight of the mansion, Olette was still beyond upset, as she had reason to be. Not once but twice in the last twenty four hours, she had been terrified that she and someone she loved were going to die. Pale and shaking so badly from fright, she was having trouble just walking until Hayner decided to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way, muttering soothing words in an effort to calm her down. Olette didn't protest, just clung to him and cried into his shoulder.

Pence gave Roxas a fleeting glance was, but the blond did not acknowledge it. Looking at her terrified face, Roxas felt like the scum of the earth. He knew that he had done that to her. He had acted impulsively, and in doing to, put both himself- and worse- Olette in danger. It was one thing that she and Hayner had stumbled upon the not-Heartless by accident, but it was quite another for Roxas to have intentionally lingered and gone deeper into an already dangerous situation and as a result, he carelessly brought Olette into harm's way, just because she'd acted as friends do and refused to leave him. _He_ had almost gotten her killed- all to satisfy his damned curiosity.

Guilt, thick, sharp, crushing guilt hit Roxas like the broad side of a tidal wave and it was all he could do to just keep walking.

"I hate to say I told you so," Pence said quietly beside him, also watching the little brunette crying in Hayner's arms, "but I _told_ you it was stupid."

Roxas didn't bother answering him. He doubted he could have talked if he wanted to.

No one else spoke again until they arrived at Olette's house. Her mother met them at the door, having heard them coming up the driveway, and was alarmed to see the state her daughter was in. Hayner, Roxas, and Pence looked at each other. They had agreed earlier to keep the not-Heartless at the mansion a secret, but before any of them could come up with an adequate cover story, Olette wriggled out of Hayner's grasp and told her mother that they had been in the woods when she'd slipped and had a bad fall.

"I'm alright, Mom, really," she said as the older woman began to fuss over her, "It just really scared me is all. I didn't even get scratched, see?"

"Are you sure, Olette? You didn't break any bones or-"

"I'm _fine_," the girl assured her, "I just want a bath and some dinner. Will you draw one for me while I say good night to the guys?"

Mrs. Marquette still didn't look convinced, the features of her face drawn in obvious concern, but withdrew back into the house anyway. Olette turned back to her friends, smiling tiredly. Roxas could still see the dried tears on her face, but she seemed to be doing loads better than before.

"We've been a bad influence on you, little liar," Hayner complimented back-handedly, giving the girl a relieved but equally tired smile of his own.

She grinned at him. "I learned from the best."

"You sure you're alright?" Pence asked. Of all of them, he had known Olette the longest, and wouldn't leave until he was certain of her well being.

"I'm sure," the girl said, hugging him. "Food, hot water, a few bubbles, and I'll be good as new."

She hugged Hayner too, then turned to Roxas.

"Olette," he began.

"I'm okay," the little brunette said firmly, looking him square in the eye. "We're all okay. Don't worry about it."

She had to know he would anyway, had to know he could see the traces of fear still lingering in those bright green eyes, but she hugged him just the same. Roxas returned it, abet still feeling guilty.

When Olette disappeared into her house, the boys began to head home themselves. His house being in the other direction Pence said goodbye at the next corner, leaving Roxas and Hayner to make their way to the upper part of town. It was quiet between them for a few blocks, but it wouldn't last. Roxas hadn't fooled himself into thinking his best friend wouldn't notice the exchange between him and Olette. He didn't have to wait long.

"What was that about?" Hayner asked once they were alone. It was early evening, most of the townsfolk were probably just finishing up with dinner, but it somehow felt much later, the rain Pence's father promised having finally appeared as thick, angry storm clouds in the northeast, stretching across the horizon, blotting out most of the usually orange-wash of the sky. But to the west was still clear, the setting sun still visible, leaving the town bathed in an almost surreal mix of light and shadow.

Roxas was quiet for a moment. Instead, he fished the boy's phone out of his pocket and gave it to him.

"It's not your fault, Roxas-" Hayner tried to say, seeming to know what the other was thinking, but Roxas cut him off.

"It _was_ my fault!" he yelled. The other blond thought he felt guilty because it was Roxas who was so adamant about Hayner getting his phone back. He didn't- _couldn't_ know the truth that Roxas had almost gotten himself and Olette killed. Roxas had to get this out, had to tell Hayner what really happened _now_ or he never would never have the courage to tell him the truth.

And then everything started just spilling out of him. Roxas told him about following the trail back to the hallway and finding the phone then getting back to the foyer and remembering the boy in the photographs on the wall. "I dunno, I just- I thought about him and then it was like- like I just _had_ to get another look at his face again! So I ran up the stairs- I told Olette to hang on for a second and went up to the room, but Olette followed me and then there's that…shadow-thing just lying there on the bed and it's growling at us and-"

But Roxas then just couldn't continue, too upset with himself to tell the rest of what happened.

"It was my fault, Hayner," Roxas choked, furious with himself. The other boy just stood there, staring at him. For a long moment, he was absolutely silent. They both stood there in silence, one in shock, one in guilt. Roxas didn't blame him. He wouldn't have had any idea what to say, either. Vaguely, he wondered by Hayner hadn't punched him yet for being so stupid.

Thunder crackled in the distance, the clouds having almost completely taken over the sky by now.

The blond looked down at his shoes, awaiting judgment. "I never meant to hurt her," he whispered, fighting back his tears.

"'Course you didn't," Hayner said softly, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I know you never would."

Roxas glanced up at him through his bangs, and Hayner just looked right back, his eyes sad and heavy but understanding. Roxas didn't deserve friends like him, Pence, and Olette. He really didn't.

-oOo-

It was a nice town, he supposed. Quiet, peaceful, the kind of place where neighbors knew each other by name and actually talked to one another for reasons other than soccer balls kicked over the fence or a pet soiling the wrong lawn. But with sundown well on its way and the storm closing in overhead, the usually sleepy town had taken on a distinctly hard edge, the once cheery atmosphere suddenly becoming charged and much less friendly.

It probably unnerved the townsfolk, warm and safe in their houses, but to the dark-hooded man still walking the cobblestone streets, the change in mood suited him just fine. Preferred it, even. Indeed, the encroaching shadows, like the lack of people out and about, was almost a balm to him. No glaring, heavenly light to expose him for that he truly was. No laughing, smiling, _living_ people to remind him of what he had once been. He almost felt… at ease here, as much as any of his ilk could feel anything. But that aside, it was fair to say he liked this town, the sloped, crooked streets and numerous alleyways providing many places in which to hide, conceal, to forget and to be forgotten.

Unfortunately, those same characteristics of this place that so appealed to the stranger also served to prevent him from finding his way.

The mission was so simple: find and identify the targets, and if one could not be found, to at least locate their place of residence so they'd know where to set up surveillance. Usually such trivial assignments were left for the Dusks to handle. Simple, right? But _noooo_, something had been interfering with the Dusks' reconnaissance one of the targets, preventing them from even getting an adequate visual. Bad enough that he got the short straw to deal with this in person, but if the others found out he'd gotten _lost _on top of that, he'd never hear the end of it.

The man sighed heavily under his hood. Even if he wasn't really annoyed, he felt the farce of frustration was necessary and scowled appropriately. This was _not_ what he'd signed up for when he'd joined in this little escapade. '_There's a lot I didn't sign up for_,' he thought darkly, '_but too late to back out now_.'

Oh, well. Maybe it was time to call on one of the locals.

Looking around, he spotted a blond boy on the corner up ahead, glumly waving goodbye to a friend going in the opposite direction. He'd do. Not wanting to deal with anymore than he had to, the man waited until the friend was well around the corner before he approached.

"Hey, kid!" he called, walking over to him. "I'm looking for Market Street. You know where it is?"

Barely giving him a second look, the kid mumbled, "This way," heading off in the direction the man had just come in, hands sulkily in his pockets.

'_He's showing me where it is? Well that's awfully nice of him_…'

"Hmm?" the boy asked, turning toward him.

'_Oops._ _Did I just say that out loud?_' "Uh, I just said that it's nice of you to show me around."

"I live on Market Street," the blond shrugged, "it's no trouble."

He lived there, huh? Maybe he could gather a little Intel on the target then. What luck.

Except almost every last question he'd tried to ask the kid was met with either a vague "sure," "yeah," or just a shrug. The blond didn't seem to be paying attention to him at all or else really distracted by something, preoccupied. Teenagers.

The man frowned. It figures that the one time in two years he'd had actually _tried_ to start a conversation, it was with the anti-conversationalist of the year. '_Jeez, you could out-emo the Superior, kid_.' Then again, if the little punk wasn't cooperative enough for useful information, at least he could have some fun with him.

"So, is everyone around here so gloomy, kid? Or did I just win the jackpot with you?" he quipped. "What's the matter? Girl trouble?"

The kid wasn't biting. Worse, didn't even appear to have heard him at all. He just kept staring at his feet and he walked.

The man struck up a grin. "Or is it boy trouble?"

The boy stopped and looked at him. Didn't tell him to shut up or screw off or to mind his own damn business. Just looked at him, obviously tired and just wanting to get home. That's when he noticed the tear tracks on his face. Well damn. If he was capable of it, the man reckoned he might actually feel a little guilty.

"Sorry kid, it's just…" he apologized, "you looked like you needed a laugh."

The boy shook his head, shrugging. "It's okay,"

"So, we're cool, then?" the man asked, cocking his head a little to the side.

"Yeah, we're cool," the blond replied, offering a small smile and his hand. "I'm Roxas."

Vivid green eyes narrowed in the shadow of his hood. '_Well, that was easier than I expected_,' he thought, prompting the corners of his lips to curl upwards in a smile. The chains of his coat ties clinked together as he pulled off his hood, releasing a shock of crimson hair. "The name's Axel," he said, shaking the boy's hand. "Got it memorized?"

-oOo-

A.N. Yes, Axel finally makes a real appearance in one of my fics. About time, right? He's a hard character to write. I couldn't seem to get into his head, not for this scene, anyway. A special thanks to ShinobiCyrus for helping me get him to behave. And for those of you who are concerned about AntiSora (he'll be known as Shadow in this fic, hence the title) there is a reason why he's being so hostile right now. He won't be like this for long, though, I promise.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to review!


	5. Chapter 5

**-Shadow-**

Chapter 5 - Down the Rabbit Hole

For having been designed to serve such a dark clientele, it was ironic the room was pure white. Rectangular and perfectly squared, the only furniture in the room was six ivory thrones, arranged in a half circle facing one of the long walls, upon which a large screen had been mounted across the entire surface. In four of these thrones sat the figure of something that was no longer human, no matter how hard they tried to be, while a fifth fiddled with the controls of the static-filled screen. Each of them was robed in a long black coat with the hoods pulled up, leaving their faces in shadow. It did not matter; they all knew each other anyway.

"Do we really have to resort to nuisances like this?" asked the form lounging in the throne furthest to the right, motioning to the electronic device on the wall, her soprano voice not bothering to hide her contempt. "We have better means of communication than this, far less complicated and secure. Not to mention reliable."

Her colleague didn't even bother looking up from his work to comment on the juvenile display, murmuring, "True, but we've received reconnaissance of increased activity among the Royal Guard lately, especially the Turks, and therefore they'll be on heightened alert. It would be unwise to draw their attention with excessive and unnecessary frivolities."

The woman shifted in her seat impatiently, obviously not fully satisfied with his answer, but just then the static on the screen cleared and all assembled gave it their full attention. Before them on the display was the image of a room nearly a perfect mirror of their own. Save for the occasional lingering static, the image was so lifelike, it could be believed that the two rooms were really one and the same, and had been designed to seem so, if not for the fact that the two locations were actually over a hundred miles apart.

The only difference was the seven thrones that occupied it and the six figures seated in them. But it was to the individual seated on the throne in the center of the others that all gave their complete and undivided attention to. For security, use of rank and designation on these transmissions was restricted to strictly need-to basis only, and names were outright forbidden. But for the Superior, no introductions were even necessary.

"The connection is secure?" he asked.

The one who had been working the controls nodded. "Yeah, encryption's running green. We're good."

The Superior nodded once in acknowledgment, and his subordinate took the cue to take his seat.

"How goes our progress in acquiring the prototype?" the Superior asked without further preamble.

Several of his five subordinates on the other end traded glances with one another.

"Not well," the third from the right confessed. "Even with all our skills, it has continued to elude us."

"You have lost the trail?"

"No. It is still in the vicinity somewhere, we are sure of it," the second from the left replied. He glanced at the empty throne on the other end... and the empty one beside him, remembering. "I know its scent now. Or the scent of the Heartless, rather. But on the edge of town, it changed and is now too fiercely mingled with the stench of the rabble."

The others seemed to ponder this for a moment. Finally, the one directly to the right of the Superior spoke. "Something must have happened to give its human side cause to rise, altering its scent. It is the only explanation," he concluded, ever the scientist.

"Agreed. In which case it is nigh impossible to find it now, even by you," the second-in-command said, nodding to the tracker who stiffened in affront. "We shall have to wait for the Heartless element to rise and resurface again."

"Yes, we shall remain patient," the Superior concurred. After all, their cabal had flourished in the shadows for many quiet years. "For the time being, continue searching for our secondary targets."

"It is already underway. There was some difficulty positioning the Dusks for surveillance, but that has since been rectified."

"How are our prospects?" It was obvious the scientist was already planning the experiments he'd have in store for this new Chosen One.

"As expected. There are those few with the potential, but none have emerged as true contenders as of yet."

"Any chance the prototype will lead us to the successor?" It was the woman who spoke again now, eager to find more worthy prey.

"There is a possibility."

"I need not remind you it is imperative we find the next bearer before he awakens," the Superior affirmed, his tone a subtle reproach.

"What makes you think it will be a _he_ who next wields the Blade?" the smallest among them asked coyly, a vicious looking red pommel just visible behind her ivory throne. Her right hand twitched with the desire to call forth her new toy and show it off to her doubtlessly envious comrades. On the other end of the transmission, the only other female present noted the girl's smugness and hid a glare underneath her hood.

"I must confess," one cut in, making a playing card appear with a flick of a gloved hand. "I believe the odds to be in favor of the Cetra descendant."

"An impressive heritage, to be sure," the second-in-command agreed, "but hardly unique. There is a son of weapons mages among the potentials here, if you recall."

"I'd go with the sorceress chick myself, but that's just me," yet another drawled as he fiddled with the firing mechanism on what was either a crossbow or some kind of rifle. And if the business end of the weapon just so happened to point more or less at the group's resident musician (who was trying not to cower in his seat), it was entirely inconsequential.

"Think what you like," the card player demurred, flipping the one in his hand over to reveal and ace of spades. "I on the other hand have played the game long enough to know how to pick my tables."

"We should just take them all out now, before _any_ of them awaken," the woman sneered.

"No. Maintain your surveillance for now," the Superior commanded. "But bear in mind time is of the essence. In not but three months, the Princess will come of age and the time for our revolution will be at hand; before which we must find her and her champions."

"Why not eliminate them now?" the second-in-command inquired carefully. "Even if only one is to be Master, surely the others still have potential enough to be of nuisance when the time comes."

Had any of the others asked this, they would have been dealt with swiftly. As it were, the Superior merely replied, "True, the death of a single Gifted child may go unnoticed. Any more at once will raise alarm among their brethren elsewhere. And though they are but children, their magic will protect them all the more strongly because of it."

Here he paused for a moment, letting the unspoken warning sink in. "Dismissed."

A wave of a cloaked arm cut the transmission and ended the gathering. The five found themselves facing only a blank screen again. Zexion and Saix rose from their seats and left the room almost immediately, but Larxene and Marluxia lingered a bit.

"Lucky little bitch," Larxene swore, throwing off her hood and not bothering to lower her voice. "Why does she get such special treatment? That undeserving brat was even granted a _Keyblade_! Of all the nerve!"

"Only an imitation," Marluxia reminded her, standing, though he knew what it was to be so slighted in favor of someone lesser. "She has the potential as much as any of the others."

"If that's what I have to look forward to once this is all good and over, I quit here and now," the blonde grumbled. A patient schemer in her own right, all this sneaking around and inaction was dragging on too long for Larxene's tastes. She was getting restless.

"Now, now," her companion chided lightly. "The girl is an integral tool to our plans, after all."

For some reason, they both smiled darkly as he said this. "But only a tool. Ultimately expendable," Larxene smirked, laughing a little, the thought amusing her. _'When the time comes, I'm gonna be the first in line to 'expend' her.'_

Behind them, Axel remained silent as he followed them out, as he had for the entire discussion since connecting the transmission. _'Yes, our cause,' _he thought, _'our _glorious _revolution.'_

Glancing around at the empty thrones, Axel wondered how many of his coconspirators still believed that.

-oOo-

The beginning of a new school year was always a drag, having to give up the freedom of summer for the monotony of the classroom and hitting the books. But for Roxas, this year was starting out especially bad. The entirety of the first day alone just sucked for the sole reason that he'd gotten absolutely zero sleep the night before, nor the night before that. Every time he even got close to drifting off, fierce yellow eyes and that unholy snarl were waiting for him behind his eyelids. Needless to say, he'd slept very little.

Roxas was pretty sure the only reason his mother hadn't noticed yet was because as a biology professor herself, she was just as swamped by the new semester as he was. Pence, Olette, and Hayner had noticed of course, but, well, they already knew enough to have a pretty good guess as to what was going on and though they worried about him, knew well enough to let him to work stuff out on his own.

But they only knew the half of it.

That first morning after the second encounter with the shadow-thing that wasn't a Heartless, Roxas had almost been expecting more writing. They almost always happened after particularly traumatic events, and as Roxas had had two days in a row of those, it followed that there would be two mornings after that he awoke to find new messages. He wasn't disappointed.

In almost the same manner as the crown from yesterday, a new image had appeared on the outside of his left bicep. At first, Roxas thought it was the Heartless symbol upside down. But the letters were right side up, so it couldn't be. Studying the outline for a moment, he saw it wasn't the emblem at all. The Heartless symbol looked like a thorned heart with a fleur-de-lis like bottom. This thing didn't have thorns or fleurs, but it did have an upside down heart with twin holes in it, topped by an almost gothic equal-armed cross. Roxas hadn't seen anything like it before. Weird.

While he was examining it, Roxas had spied some words in the design and soon worked out the rest. It was far from reassuring:

_"And thus I clothe my naked villainy_

_With old odd ends stol'n forth of holy writ;_

_And seem a saint, when most I play the Devil."_

Roxas heard his voice grow quieter as he read the last line aloud. A devil pretending to be a saint? Naked villainy? What was this? Somewhat distantly, he realized the verse was in iambic pentameter. Probably Shakespeare then, though he didn't have a clue what specific play offhand.

But the sheer malignancy of the verse deeply unnerved him, and Roxas decided to suspend all further speculation about it until he could get onto his computer and find out where the hell it was from. The circumstances that these things were written for by their original authors often shed light as to their relevance to him in the here and now. Roxas wasn't sure if he dreaded or welcomed such insight on such ominous prose.

Continuing his inspection of himself, Roxas saw the crown from yesterday was still there over his heart, though the letters had faded a bit. Curiously, there was a new line of text right in the middle of it:

_the key in silence undetected_

Searching his memory a bit, Roxas recognized it as part of a clue from the movie _National Treasure_. Unless he was going on a treasure hunt sometime in the near future, that was supremely unhelpful, as was the single line "_The Beginning_" that had materialized on his back between his shoulder blades.

And that was it, as far as he could tell. Roxas still felt lower than a slug for what had happened with the not-Heartless and Olette, but at least it didn't seem like his subconscious was going to be writing him nightly "_you're a loser_" notes (hey, it had happened before) and Roxas allowed himself to let it go a little.

And speaking of Olette, she called him fifteen minutes later as he was finishing breakfast with his mom. Yesterday's thunderstorm had lingered overnight, and in lieu of the festival being canceled, she was ordering him to her house for fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and a Monty Python marathon. The girl gave him thirty minutes to get his butt over there or she was siccing Pence and Hayner on him.

Bone-ached and damn tired, Roxas smiled and thanked whatever gods there were for the friends he really didn't deserve. He'd been so absorbed about all the weird, creepy crap going on in his life and here comes sweet, dependable Olette to cheer him up- by force, if need be.

_'Only that girl could shanghai somebody with cookies,' _he thought fondly.

Roxas vowed that today was about his friends. He'd almost ruined all their lives yesterday. He was not going to ruin their last day of summer, too. Or any other day with them ever again.

That had been the plan, anyway. But Roxas hadn't counted on his own mind turning against him. He'd let himself off the hook too soon.

Roxas may have sworn to forget his curiosity (his _morbid_ curiosity, he reminded himself forcefully) about the mansion and the not-Heartless inside of it, but it seemed the black monstrosity was all his subconscious mind could think about.

When he wasn't turning over restlessly in his bed unable to sleep or having nightmares about a yellow-eyed hissing shadow bearing down on him, Roxas dreamed of wandering down the crumbling hallways to the white room and the library until he knew them so well he felt he could recall their every detail.

The writing didn't stop, either.

It was nothing major at first. A line on his forearm one night, a line on his calve the next. But every morning, without fail, Roxas would roll out of bed only to find more ink somewhere on his body.

These new writings were very mixed. Some were deliberate, pointed. Others seemed to be nothing more than ranting or gibberish, but resonated with Roxas in a way he couldn't place, the way the crown poem had. All stood out starkly in his mind, the way the ink stood out starkly on his skin.

_Those beings who lack hearts – the Heartless – must be the key._

_Those who lack hearts… I will call them the Heartless._

The passage sent a shiver down Roxas' spine. Even after a century, no one knew exactly where the Heartless had originated from. Most just called them that because Maleficent called them that, and since she was the one who controlled them, everyone assumed she had created them while dabbling around with dark magic. But after Maleficent was slain by the Keybearers and her castle was raided by the Royal Guard, they had found nothing that concretely proved the witch herself had in fact created her legions of monsters or how she controlled them, any evidence probably having been already destroyed.

If this was from any sort of journal or notes of hers, it was something no one had read in a hundred years.

_But where there is light, darkness also lurks. Darkness is the midst of nothing. And darkness sleeps in every heart, no matter how pure._

That one was straight out of King Ansem's journals. Every schoolchild in the land had been required to read Ansem's memoirs at one time or another . Roxas fervently hoped this didn't mean he'd be needing the King's detailed knowledge about the Heartless anytime soon. Or worse- learning parts of it firsthand.

_Something is rotten in the state of Denmark._

_Heaven will direct it._

_Nay, let's follow him._

'_Yeah, and that way madness lies,' _Roxas mentally shot back at his own subconscious when he'd first read it. Two could play that game.

That single line of his back turned out to be the title of what grew to be very short story of sorts:

**The Beginning**

_Each journey gives rise to chance encounters and each encounter brings for a farewell._

_When a farewell leads to a journey, the people open their hearts._

_Those chosen by the light, or ensnared by the darkness. Friends share the same bonds, though their paths may differ._

_When you doubt the path trod thus far, when the hand you held is lost to you, gaze anew at the heart that was…_

…_for all answers lie within._

Roxas wasn't sure if this was supposed to comfort him in some way or not, but the sense of subtle foreboding it gave him, the sense that _something was coming_, more than freaked him out a little.

And then there were references to what seemed to be called the "non-existent ones." At first, Roxas thought this was just another allegory for the Heartless. And yet…

_An in-between existence._

The single most distressing of all the writings remained the villain quote that appeared the second day. It had indeed been Shakespeare, from Act I, scene iii of _King Richard III_. Richard was not yet a monarch at that point in the story, but was plotting to usurp the throne from the Queen by placing blame on her for his brother's fraudulent imprisonment. The lines were his grotesque glorification of his evil and ruthlessness. A true wolf in sheep's clothing.

Roxas _never_ wanted to meet the guy that made that passage relevant to him.

Apart from feeling like he was slowly going nuts from all this, what truly creeped Roxas out the most was the way the writing almost seemed to respond to him at times. It wasn't anything obvious, more like all his thoughts and feelings and protests were condensed into a general and very vague memo that his subconscious bothered to read only when it felt like it. Neither did it answer any of his questions, whether he ask them aloud or consciously wrote them on his arm.

The back of his head also seemed to pick up that he wasn't listening to it, either, and wasn't happy. The more stubbornly Roxas refused orders to return to the mansion, the more adamant the writing was that he should do so. It was like he was slowly losing control over himself- which didn't even make any _sense_. But then, what part of any of this did?

Either way, it seemed to have no reservations about mocking his efforts to contain it:

_Out, damn'd spot! Out, I say!_

"Oh, now you're just being a jerk!" Roxas snapped at his wrist. Though the door was closed, he was still loud enough that his mother heard him from across the hall.

"Roxas? Sweetie, is everything okay?" she called from her bathroom.

"Fine, Mom!" he called back, hoping she wouldn't come in to investigate_. 'Just having an argument with myself- not sure who's winning.' _

It had been close to two weeks since all this had started and Roxas simply refused to tell anyone about it. Not his mom, not Olette and the guys, nobody. He knew he couldn't keep it up forever, but Roxas was too desperate to maintain the thin veil of normalcy. He couldn't stand the people he loved looking at him like he was a raving lunatic.

Bad enough his mind and arms had turned against him, but then his legs seemed to have decided to join in the mutiny as well. If he wasn't paying attention, they began to take on a will of their own, walking him off somewhere Roxas hadn't meant to go. And more often than not, that somewhere was right back in the direction of the mansion.

Twice after school, he found himself turning left, toward the tram commons, on the far side of which was the huge crack in the outer wall that opened into the woods, instead of right, up the hill to Market Street towards home. Wednesday morning he had been so absorbed with brooding over the latest message (scribbled on his leg this time) Roxas utterly failed to notice when said limbs walked him straight to the woods beyond town until a twig snapping under his foot likewise snapped him out of it. He could just make out the manor's roof over the line of trees.

Cursing at himself and the world and whatever else he could think of , Roxas whipped around and high tailed it back to school. He was in such a hurry, Roxas nearly knocked over that guy he'd met the other day as he sprinted down the street, not even realizing it until the redhead shouted, "_Hey_-! Watch where you're going, kid!"

Still running at full burn, the speeding blond only glanced over his shoulder, recognized his almost victim by his hair and shouted a quick, "Sorry!" before turning around again and disappearing around the corner in his mad and futile attempt to get to school on time.

Axel stared after him a minute before shaking his head, whether at the gall of kids these days or something else entirely, no one knew, not even him, and he continued on his way.

Though the very image of a manic pedestrian, Roxas still ended up 20 minutes late. Three periods later as he sat through algebra, it dawned on him how badly this thing was getting out of control. The messages were getting increasingly numerous and ever more persistent, all telling him to go back to the mansion in the woods.

Not threatening to him, per se, and never quite so blunt as "_finish what you started, punk,_" but increasingly insistent that he obey.

'_But I won't,'_ he swore to himself, scrunching his eyes shut, trying to send his thoughts into the deepest recesses of him mind, to whatever part of him this was coming from. _'Last two times I went there, someone I love almost got killed. I. Am. NOT. Going. Back!'_

For four days, his renewed promise seemed to work. There were no new writings, either on himself or anywhere else, and his feet took him nowhere except where he wanted them to. Roxas went to bed Sunday night tentatively hopeful that this… episode was finally over.

On Monday, Roxas woke up, and inspected himself carefully. Nothing.

Slowly letting out a breath of relief, Roxas dropped his pajamas on his bed and went into the bathroom to start getting ready for the day.

Glancing in the mirror as he stepped into the shower, Roxas did a double take – and felt his fledgling hope drain like the blood from his face.

There, across every available inch of skin, was writing. Every inch covered in letters and symbols. His face was almost completely black with them.

Roxas didn't even stop to read them. He wrenched the hand towel from the rack by the sink, plunged into the shower and began scrubbing at his face furiously.

'_Why? Why is this happening to me? Why me?'_

A sob tried to work its way up his throat, but Roxas forced it back down. Freaking out and breaking down was not going to help.

It was only once his skin had been rubbed raw and began smarting too painfully to continue did Roxas finally stop attacking his face and finished showering normally, letting the warm spray cascade over him and willed himself to _calm_ _down_.

Still, it was only once the water started getting noticeably colder did Roxas shut it off and grab a towel to dry off. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to step out of the sanctuary of the tub and reexamine himself in the mirror.

To his relief, much of the markings were now gone. Most, but not all.

Written boldly across his forehead in what Roxas assumed was black permanent marker was:

_**FROM WHENCE THOU HAST COME, THOU MUST RETURN**_

As he stood there, staring at his reflection and dripping water all over the floor, Roxas was still more than a little rattled. But it occurred to him that the writing was legible to him in the mirror, which meant it was really written backwards and thus _illegible_ to anyone looking at him straight on.

It was meant to be readable only by _him_.

Only him…

Roxas glanced at the clock. Seven fifty-two. Class started at eight. If he threw on some clothes now and ran like hell, Roxas could maybe still make it on time. But he stayed where he was.

A message only for him…

The last two times Roxas had gone to the mansion, one of his best friends had almost died. He'd sworn it would never happen again. Even if his own mind drove him insane, Roxas was never going to endanger his friends like that. Ever.

But school started in less than five minutes, after which Hayner, Pence, and Olette would be stuck in class all day, away from the mansion and that monster lurking within. They'd be safe while he went on alone. There'd be hell to pay with his mom later for skipping school, but…

A message for him alone…

'_Just go now,'_ a part of his mind argued. _'Your friends are safe. Go now, find out what the hell the deal is, and get it over with. Just go…'_

"Go now and get it over with," he murmured to himself, meeting the eyes of his reflection. Behind the glass, his reflection stared trepidly back at him.

-oOo-

There was only gonna be hell to pay with his mom if the haunted house and the monster didn't beat her to it, Roxas amended as he stepped into the dusty foyer.

Leaving the door open for light and air (and a quick getaway, but Roxas prayed it wouldn't come to that), he wandered carefully into the room. It had gotten far too familiar for comfort lately, but now that he was inside, Roxas realized that he hadn't really given much thought as to what would happen or what he'd actually do once he got here.

Well, he supposed there really was nothing to do but wait.

Roxas was tempted to just stay by the door and keep watch from there, but it was set back in a deep alcove, so the upper floor and the side walls were out of the line of sight. He sat down in front of the ruined display case in the center instead. It was far from ideal, but it did have the best vantage point and at least it gave Roxas something solid to put his back to. So he settled in with his backpack and the dust bunnies and waited.

The morning wore on slowly.

Roxas kept his eyes trained on the shadows and his ears open for any sound at all, but all was still and it was utterly quiet. Even with the door open behind him, Roxas couldn't hear any birds or wind from outside. Even the ticking of his watch seemed hushed somehow. Roxas considered keeping it on, just to have _something_ to oppose the almost oppressive silence, but ultimately he stashed the timepiece in his bag. If he could hear it, he wasn't taking the chance that the not-Heartless could hear it, too.

With the distraction gone, Roxas found his attention wandering. He was very much still on high alert, but with no apparent danger present, his tired mind was hard pressed to maintain such dedicated vigilance.

In an effort to keep himself occupied, Roxas took to studying his surroundings in-depth. Particularly, he compared what details of the foyer he had all but memorized from his dreams with the real thing. There were discrepancies, of course, the two times he'd been up there had hardly been occasions to take in very much. But all in all, his dreams had been fairly accurate. Doors and windows and such were more or less where he'd imagined them to be. The twin statues of rearing winged unicorns still flanked the large French doors that led out to the inner courtyard (what was it with this place and unicorns, Roxas wondered, remembering the similar sculpture up in the library). Certain paintings and other decoration were on the floor rather than on the wall, and the color pallet had definitely been brighter in his dreams, leading Roxas to wonder if he hadn't been imagining what the manor had looked like when it was still in use when he'd dreamed of it.

It really must have been a grand and dignified place once, he decided. Shame it had fallen into such disrepair. Someone had certainly put a lot of money into building it, so why had they abandoned it? Where were they now? Probably dead, in all honesty, but wouldn't they have had children or relatives the house could have gone to?

As he speculated about the mansion's mystery owners, Roxas remembered the three children whose portraits hung in the white room. He still didn't know who they were, but they must have lived here once.

Roxas kinda wanted to see them again, like they were old friends of his that he hadn't spoken to in a while, but remained where he was on the floor. He hadn't forgotten what had happened the last time he'd been in that room. The still visible trail of Hayner's blood on the tile killed any inclination to go exploring again.

Half an hour slipped into an hour, and still no sign of the not-Heartless. Roxas' focus dwindled even further. The warm patches of sunlight that managed to slowly climb over the line of trees and flood through the windows didn't help matters, either. It highlighted the dust even more, but that only served to make everything seem fuzzier somehow; softer, sleepier. In spite of himself, eventually, Roxas dozed off.

He didn't dream, but more he drifted in that weird limbo between sleep and awake. Everything seemed to just disappear in a white haze, and even time seemed suspended.

He came to again sometime later when his cell went off in his pocket. Feeling stiff from napping in such a cramped position, Roxas gingerly retrieved the phone and flipped it open. Pence had texted him:

_Where r u?_ it said.

"Waiting for a demon to jump out of a wall and eat me," Roxas muttered. He checked the time. Ten forty-five. Fourth period, History, was just starting, the first class he had with any of his friends. Of course they'd be realizing he wasn't in school right about now. It also meant that he'd been here for the better part of three hours and still nothing had happened. This little venture was starting to look like a big waste of time.

Roxas started to type up a reply when he realized something. Excluding this morning and the past couple of days, this was the first time in weeks he'd regained consciousness without finding a writing implement in his hand. Quickly inspecting himself in what remained of the display's glass to be certain, Roxas verified that there was no new markings on him (the one left over from this morning was mercifully still well covered by the make-up he kept for just such occasions). Maybe this whole "go and get it over with" thing was starting to pay off already.

…Or maybe he just hadn't had anything to write with, Roxas corrected, noticing his backpack was no longer beside him. And when he followed the trail in the dust of where it had gone to…

He found that the not-Heartless had dragged his bag away from him while he'd slept and up to the first landing on the stairs.

For a full ten minutes, they just stared at each other. The entire time, Roxas was aware of absolutely nothing other than the sight of the monster that filled his vision, and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

But after a while, the thing seemed to grow bored with him, returning its attention instead to the bag. Completely ignoring the convenience of the zipper, it had ripped open the front pocket to get at something inside, a brown paper bag.

"Hey!" Roxas cried. "That's my lunch!"

The creature did not reply, or give any indication that it had even heard the blond at all. Roxas could only watch indignantly as it took a large bite into a peach, spitting out the seed which was apparently not to its liking. The discarded pit bounced a few times before stopping at his feet.

That peach had been the last one they'd had at home from Grandma Marlene's farm. Roxas considered kicking it back at the thing, horribly painful claws be damned, but he paused, picking it up instead. There were deep grooves in it from the not-Heartless' teeth, but otherwise, the seed was intact, the bits of tattered flesh still clinging to it still pink and juicy.

Roxas turned it over in his hand. It wasn't a shrived black husk, wasn't ruined by the taint of darkness. And neither was he. _'I was sleeping,' _he thought_. 'Unconscious and totally helpless. And all it does is swipe my bag to steal my lunch? What the hell?'_

Something else occurred to him. Heartless didn't _eat_. At least, not food, anyway.

"You're… really _not_ a Heartless," Roxas asked the thing quietly, "are you?"

He looked the creature over again. It looked different from the last two times he'd seen it. It was more… defined somehow, and something about its eyes had definitely changed.

A low growl let him know his staring was not appreciated. So, not a Heartless, but not human, either.

"But, if you're not a Heartless, then… what are you?"

Here, the creature paused in its pilfering, looking back at him for the first time since their unofficial staring contest. There was definitely something different about its eyes. Last time, they had been pure yellow and almost completely round at one point. Though still mostly yellow, now they were almond shaped instead with white at the corners. They almost looked like human eyes.

_Those beings who lack hearts – the Heartless – must be the key_, the writing had said, _ensnared by the darkness..._

Something odd was definitely going on here. Roxas was getting the funny feeling it would be up to him to find out what. He wasn't entirely sure he had a choice. Who else could?

Who else _would_?

_Something is rotten in the state of Denmark._

Roxas had never put much faith into things like fate and predetermination of a person's ultimate destiny. Some things just had to happen, like water seeking the path of least resistance as it flowed downhill. Once a stone was thrown into the air, it was just the way things work that the stone would have to eventually fall back to earth. But it was the thrower's choices that affected how far the stone went and whether it landed in a field or in a stream. Once certain events transpired or choices were made, there were just certain consequences that inevitably followed.

That was what Roxas had always believed, anyway.

_Those chosen by the light...  
_

But for the first time in his life, Roxas felt like he was getting pulled along by something much bigger than he was. He still wouldn't call it destiny, but somehow or another, he had stumbled onto this path, and now he had to walk down it ready or not.

-oOo-

A.N. I considered actually working the lines from _King Richard III _into the Nobody symbol, but uh… no, just no.

Anyway, you all have _Angels & Demons _to thank for this update. I saw it for the first time three weeks ago while on vacation with my family. Pretty good movie, book was better IMO, but _oh my god_, the soundtrack brought back every idea I ever had for the ending of this fic like _whoa_! And _then_ some!

I was so inspired I wrote the entire first draft on the flight home. Since it's been so long, I tried to pack in a lot more than usual. Hope it was worth it! :D

And once again, huge thank you for ShinobiCyrus. Couldn't have done it without ya!


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